Safe shipment of a wide variety of articles, many of them fragile, is critical to modem commerce. Many articles of manufacture must be packaged for shipment by common carrier, and therefore may be subject to rough handling. When such articles are fragile, they must be protected against the possibility that their container may be dropped, battered, or pierced. A common approach to protecting fragile articles is to place the article in a corrugated container surrounded by packing material. Many different types of packing have been used to protect items being shipped in cartons.
One method has been to use a bed of loose fill such as foam "peanuts" or crumpled paper. When using this method it is important that a fragile article not be able to migrate through the fill as it vibrates during transport, and eventually find its way to an outer wall of the container where the article is less protected. Another method has been to provide a structural insert such as a molded foam jacket which fits the article and occupies all the remaining space in the carton. Although this method is effective in protecting the article, it is very expensive. A fill material such as crumpled paper requires considerable labor to arrange the article in the packing material. Furthermore, the use of synthetic foams has become less desirable because of environmental concerns when the material is not easily recyclable.
Attempts have been made to construct loose fill dunnage elements from paperboard. One such element consists of strips wound into cylinders, which are not compressible along the axis of the cylinder. Another such element consists of a spiral wound strip, which is difficult to make with enough structural strength to adequately protect fragile articles. Examples of U.S. Patents showing packing elements include: U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,051,345; 5,213,867; 5,3;08,677; and 5,312,665.